Le Seuil
by Author Alert
Summary: Currently abandoned. Sequel to Le J, eventual YYxSK. With the sky cleared, his clothes dry, and what did or didn't happen in the park out of his head, Kaiba should be in his element, but something's throwing him off, and he won't tolerate that.
1. Some Boy Tarted Up in a Business Suit

Title: Le Seuil  
Author: Lysander (Fairly Grimm)  
Pairing: Yami no Yuugi/Seto Kaiba  
Rating: T, PG-13  
Summary: Incredibly late sequel to "Le Jardin," WIP, eventual YYxSK. The sky's cleared, his clothes are dry, what did or didn't happen in the park is out of his head -- Kaiba should be in his element, but something's throwing him off, and he won't tolerate that.

...It's been about six months since I promised a sequel in a few weeks. Don't ask how that happened. At any rate, I plotted out twenty-four chapters, got twelve in before deciding the project needed to be shredded apart, and some massive overhauling later, here's the result. Or, the first chapter of it. Expect the next in a week or two (really, this time), assuming I don't drift off into the ether again. And don't worry: set up chapters, bane of my existence, will be over with shortly.

Ridiculous amounts of love to Mechante Fille for betaing and Raventide for scribbling, Analyzing, and poking me into actually posting this instead of just letting the chapters set around and collect dust.

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**01: Some Boy Tarted Up in a Business Suit**

By Monday morning, the skies had cleared and the familiar smell of fresh revenues printouts and fresher coffee had broken the spell of Sunday's rain.

The day before had passed in a blur, something saturated and slightly numb; Kaiba had walked all the way home from the park before he realized his mobile was waterproof, that he should've just called his driver. From that realization he'd staggered to bed, and he lay there in a stupor, staring at the ceiling until he could feel -- although he'd made sure that his blinds cut off all light -- that the sun had set. Then he finally slept, and the vague, confusing dreams that followed weren't much different from what he'd been experiencing in waking hours. The whole day was a distant, dull fantasy that played incessantly in the back of his head but was no more real to him than a ghost's kiss on the back of his neck.

Hardly a surprise that he wouldn't retain something so obviously too surreal to have meaning.

Today, though, today was a new day, untouched by the implications of the recent past, and after taking Mokuba out to a local restaurant for breakfast before school -- a small unspoken thank-you, as he knew it had to have been his little brother's doing, that no one disturbed him on Sunday when he was so obviously out of sorts -- Kaiba was firmly ensconced in his office, flicking through the latest reports. It was very easy to purge the scent of rain with scalding hot coffee.

Kaiba didn't have much to do with the various sales departments, as he was far too important to waste his time on paperwork, but if there was one set rule for business at Kaiba Corp, it was that everything, _everything_, right down to the most minute detail, was subjected to the scrutiny of the meticulous CEO. His company was hardly a one-man empire, but Kaiba made sure that nothing escaped his attention, or more importantly, his control. If anyone was considering another takeover, they were going to have a hell of a time. He'd poured everything he had into this company, and nothing was going to interfere with Kaiba Corp's steady recovery from the…Doma incident. Maintaining focus at a time like this was crucial.

And yet…something nagged at him, put his laser focus off by just a touch. It wasn't enough to slow him down any, as he mentally summed columns and checked the accuracy of the profit reports, making a little red tick in the margin as he noticed a slight discrepancy -- probably the east Niigata branch, a usual trouble spot; he'd make a call to accounting in an hour or so to determine who needed firing, although he already had his suspicions as to the culprit, and -- his train of thought had already switched rails.

Focus.

All that aside, it tugged at him, like an irritating half-remembered melody with words he could only guess at. At the same time, though, the tune was…compelling, and he wanted to know where he'd heard it before, if only so that he could properly exorcise it. Every time he thought he'd caught on to something familiar, it slipped through his fingers like smoke, and he was left with no idea of what he'd been searching for. It was like being stared at, except that he could never seem to turn his head quickly enough to catch the culprit at it, and he was all alone.

_Something_ was _amiss_, and _that_ was _intolerable_.

Kaiba tucked away the revenue pages, absently giving his red pen a click, and moved on to spending, trying to shake the italics out of his head. Oh, corporate spending, and a weekend report, as well: always such a predictable mess. How those idiots managed to make any progress at all was mind-boggling. He'd fire them, but that'd only generate more of a mess, and these particular pages of his daily breakdown were something that demanded his complete attention nowadays _without_ the added stress. He frowned, and wondered when exactly he'd started caring about spending reports anyway. While he'd only been minorly concerned with the amount of capital that went into various projects before, lately every penny had been something to hold on to, and the fact that he cared without know why bothered him.

There was the new European Kaiba Land to think of, naturally, and while he didn't truly mind the slight dip he'd noticed in their second quarter profits as he poured more funds into the place, Kaiba didn't want any slack in his company at a time like this. Kaiba Corp was recovering, was definitely going places, and something as stupid as capital wasn't going to get in the way of that. It was a good enough reason, plausible excuse for the amount of time he was spending running through columns of numbers, doing busywork. After all, he wasn't going to tolerate any sort of negligence -- or for that matter, whichever _snake_ in the east Niigata branch had been skimming off the top of company revenue.

Actually, that was really beginning to get to him; he felt his fingers close too tightly on his pen, and relaxed his grip almost forcibly.

It wasn't that he expected honesty and integrity from his employees, and certainly, if any of them were dishonest and corrupt, it _had_ to be the people in revenue. Kaiba knew and respected the fact that business was all a matter of avoiding being backstabbed while you waited for your own carefully executed _coup d'etat_ to come through. He'd spent more than one evening lately wining and dining some of the tech industry's most accomplished liars, and before the table was ever set, it was mutually acknowledged that all parties involved were out solely for their own gain.

But something about the nature of this transgression, the fact that there was some balding, middle-aged coward hiding behind a Kaiba Corp desk, engaging in petty theft against the very company that in another ten years would be paying out his pension... Dishonesty was of no consequence, but dis_loyalty_ was an entirely different matter, disgusted him in a way that usually nothing did. He made a mental note to drop by the Niigata headquarters for a little unannounced _evaluation_ and find just which bastard had been shorting the company a few thousand yen a week, see that he was _dealt with_ personally. He tolerated some things, knew the nature of the beast he sought to tame, but petty thievery was not among those.

Petty thievery.… This entire affair was petty. He was sitting in his office, eyes glazing over as he scanned computer printouts of money he didn't particularly care about. His mouth felt dry and tasted like nothing. Copper, though, once he bit his tongue. Why? Why any of this? Somewhere on the smooth line from point to point, he'd lost track of the purpose. Did he have an agenda any longer? His head felt strange and his eyes didn't quite focus. Mental disconnect, rather: what he saw was meaningless, and he couldn't think about anything else.

Kaiba set down his pen. It landed beside his papers with a clack, rolled in lazy circles towards the edge, fell -- almost drifted -- off his desk, clattered on the floor, slid across the tile, connected with the wall, reversed course, drifted backwards…stopped; he watched, and watched, and watched, and stopped. He blinked. He reached down, picked the pen up, and set it firmly on the desk again. To his eyes, it was motionless; in his head, it was spiraling again, gliding in uneven curves across the floor. Why?

Why any of this?

Why was he even thinking about this?

His head hurt, or maybe it felt numb.

That was it; there was definitely something up. There had to be something else going on, _something_ distracting him. No valid reason to blame this on anything other than chance, but he didn't trust chance, and he'd learned early on to go with his gut feeling. Preoccupation and inobservance could be costly mistakes. He was on edge, and not about to dismiss it as nothing, not until he could be sure. He'd seen enough competitors go down, and _hard_, just because they were a little too hasty to write him off as nothing to worry about, just some boy tarted up in a business suit, Gozaburo's pet.

At the time, it'd bothered him, but when he'd matured a bit, it'd become clear that however irritating it was to be classed as a useless pawn, at best a pretender to the throne, it was a definite advantage. He'd always been able to taste the change in the atmosphere when his eyes met his enemies' and he could feel the unusual shade of blue unnerving them, could sense their misgivings as they scanned his face, eyed him up and down, and weighed that against what they'd heard about him. It was the moment they shrugged it off, eased their defenses, that damned them.

Kaiba wasn't about to ease up on his own.

Even if his mind was hazy and his thoughts were spinning slowly down to die.

Focus. Concrete world, digital mind. Connections: perfect line, no curves, straight, point to point to point. No interference. Nothing extraneous.

To attack, one targeted order first. Order had to be preserved.

Kaiba scanned his desk suspiciously, taking in slowly the objects that sat on it, looking for anything that might've been tampered with. Mokuba's picture was in its proper place, beaming at him the way only a child could smile. His coffee was a bit cold, but just where he'd left it, seven centimeters to the right of his elbow, four centimeters down from his keyboard. His keyboard, too, was exactly where it ought to be, although that was unsurprising, considering that it was built into the desk. Kaiba tapped the key to turn his personal computer on, and its screen slid up out of the desk right on cue as an automated voice greeted him brusquely. Quickly he logged in and skimmed through his files. Nothing seemed wrong there.

He moved on to his phone and intercom; he heard his secretary's professionally cheerful chirrup without delay, and when he dialed one of Kaiba Corp's many test numbers, the phone connected fine. He went so far as to call his own home number to make sure that it wasn't a closed circuit within the company, but Mokuba's voice on the answering machine dispelled that fear. It had to be something else….

There! He snatched up his stapler, previously ignored at the edge of his desk, and snapped it open, dumping out the staples and tossing it aside. It clattered; he ignored it; his attention was elsewhere. One staple, two, four, five, ten, twenty, forty, fifty, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, _sixty-three staples_. There had been sixty-_four_ at last count and--! And he'd used one himself, he realized, not ten minutes earlier, to put his printouts together.

Kaiba's breath left him in a whoosh. He was going mad, clearly, letting this all get to him. He retrieved the stapler from where it'd landed, refilled it carefully, counting the staples again as he did so, just to be sure.

A quick check also confirmed that his pen jar still contained nine pens (four black, two red not counting the one still spinning in its circles in his head, two blue, one fountain pen for signing documents) and two mechanical pencils. Nothing seemed to have been moved. Not that anyone who was intelligent enough to break into his office should've been stupid enough to leave something obviously disturbed, but it was a small reassurance. Narrowed the list of possible suspects, anyway, if he ever came up with one.

One more set of values out; that much closer to finding the final solution.

He checked the desk drawers after that, and even got down underneath the desk to pop out the hidden tape recorder and make sure it was still functioning, but that was where he stopped. This was all becoming ridiculous. It wasn't worth removing the wall panels to see that the cameras and recorders installed by security were still online. He didn't tend to use them unless he had company he wanted to keep an extra eye on, anyway.

Besides, the last time he'd tried to get into the equipment behind the walls, he'd gotten a nasty shock from a new security measure that his advisors had neglected to mention. It wasn't worth sitting in the infirmary being gawked at again, not when the memory of the tabloid report -- _CEO of Kaiba Corp Being Treated for Electricity Burns After Breaking into Own System_ -- was still so fresh. The room was safe, he decided.

Safe _enough_. Nothing was ever truly safe.

Whatever this was, this thing that was bothering him so, he concluded, it was surely more in his head than his office. But even having settled that…Kaiba couldn't seem to concentrate, to continue summing the columns and checking places to shave off a few million yen a week. He set down his pen momentarily, shutting his eyes and beginning to massage his temples; usually all it took was a simple in-out of breath and a bit of focus. Only an amateur would get thrown off by something like his, and Kaiba was hardly that.

It was just a headache, a momentary lapse; it had to be.

He opened his eyes. The spending report was suddenly in some foreign language -- and evidently not French, German, English, Korean, or Latin, because he understood those, and _this_ one made no sense whatsoever. It was like his brain was going numb; whatever it was, it was quite effective in keeping him from getting any work done. How could he be slipping like this? He didn't have _time_ for this sort of distraction! There wasn't time for any of this.

Kaiba scowled in irritation, but he knew his own limits, that he wasn't going to make any progress like this. How _could_ he make progress, with existential gibbersh running round with spinning pens in his head? All tied up in one great, shifting circle like an ouroboros -- ultimate symbol of futility, in his mind, not continuity. And where was he? Lost somewhere in the center? Unacceptable.

He tapped the intercom, and didn't wait for his secretary to answer. "Fujiwara, cancel my three o'clock with Kobayashi. If he argues, tell him we're going public with the our little secret, and have security deal with him. I'm leaving; call Isono and have a car waiting out front."

Without bothering to hear the concerned response, he switched off the intercom and flipped his briefcase onto the desk. Methodical, and that was comforting: he spun the combo lock, slid his printouts inside the case, then locked it shut again. Work could be dealt with later, and maybe it was even better that way, as he could finish it off it while Mokuba did his schoolwork. Grabbing his coat, Kaiba headed to his personal elevator and punched in the button for the ground floor.

Whatever it was that was bothering him so much, it didn't leave, and even staring through the tinted windows of his limousine at a dimmer, more distant, less complicated version of reality, the whole _world_ just seemed beyond his reach. And that thing, that thing in the back of his mind that kept him from being able to…to function, that thing was still there, a nameless whisper in a tongue he couldn't speak. He'd forgotten something, lost something important, and there didn't seem to be any hope of pulling it back again.

And then _it_ strolled by on the sidewalk, suddenly giving a name and face to everything Kaiba had wanted to dissect and understand, and there it was, that had to be the tugging in the back of his mind, standing on the street with a grocery bag under its arm. It looked at him with curious eyes.

"Stop the car."


	2. Proving Fate's Mutability

Gasp. An update. Stunning, isn't it? Same love to Mechante Fille and Raventide, goddess among goldfish that she is, as well as to reviewers in general, particularly with the e-mails, as you provide the guilt-trip necessary to make me post.

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**02: Proving Fate's Mutability**

It was peculiar, how very quickly the sun came out from behind the clouds and the dreamy sort of haze that had lingered all of Sunday really just…evanesced, turned to nothing. Walking past the gates of the Peace Garden, it was funny to think that he'd been there, just barely out before the sun became visible, in that odd sort of half-light of dawn. It didn't seem real anymore, although the memory was more-or-less firm in his head. So strange, though, because it didn't feel familiar at all, for all that he knew he'd walked there dozens of times, for all that he could say with absolute authority that these were the gates he'd gone through, and that was the particular brick that had been level with Kaiba's head when he shoved him back, and _that_ was the bar those bony fingers had curled around as he moaned, and

Yami felt nervy all at once, like something was about to come up and he was lingering in the last safe moment before impact.

When he'd become so jumpy, he couldn't begin to say, and it was such a _normal_ setting, just walking home from the grocery with Yuugi, who'd guilt-tripped him into carrying the bags to make up for that ruined jacket…but these streets still weren't, after all this time, _familiar_, and he wasn't sure that he didn't still expect some masked foe to come leaping out from behind a streetlight, or that expensive car that had pulled over on the other side of the street to collect a passenger. He cast a suspicious glance at a girl who walked by him.

Maybe it was just the fact that he now had to do everything _alone_ that made him so anxious.

The separation had been more of a blow than he'd expected, and the choice had been so spontaneous that he'd never really even formed a clear…expectation. It was a snap decision, a reflex choice; he'd heard the terms and known instantly what he had to do.

Atemu was dead, or at the very least, not who he had been; had he been entombed in that pyramid forever, he might have emerged the same man -- still a boy, really -- but the chrysalis had been shattered and the moth that clawed its way out half-formed had been altered by experience. How _could_ he be the same person, when all his memories had to be replaced, when all his experiences were new and the only world he'd ever _truly_ known was this one? Whatever, whoever he had been, back when he had memories and knew who he was, that creature was gone, and Yami was what remained.

Hideous to defy the natural order of things, but defiance he had in spades.

So, he'd said yes, or rather, he'd said no, refusing to go quietly to the afterlife. Somehow he thought that the piece of him that had been a pharaoh had gone on there some time ago, sometime when he'd stopped being "the nameless pharaoh" and had become simply Yami. The dark memory game and the choice given to him at the end had only made that all the more clear to him. In a world of memories that'd once felt like home, the only thing that had _truly_ felt real had been Yuugi, and the rest of their friends, and that made a difference. That changed everything. If it meant throwing away the memories he was still trying to absorb, and changing the face of his destiny, it meant nothing; if he had a choice to remain with Yuugi, then how could he refuse?

He had a new name now, and a purpose that was not Atemu's, and he wasn't going to just fade to nothing like Sunday's mist and return to a death that wasn't his.

And that brought him right back to the other name, the one that'd been plaguing him lately: Seto Kaiba. Much as it surprised him, given how much their philosophies seemed incompatible, Kaiba's blind rejection of his past had rubbed off on him, after all. He wasn't sure whether that should grate or draw gratitude.

It was strange how often the boy seemed, through his own backhanded methods, to come to his aid, although he could never quite be sure that Kaiba had even _meant_ to do it. True, there were too many accidents, too many times that Kaiba had been his _deus ex machina_ for it to be anything but their lot; that'd been clear from the beginning. They were all tangled up in a destiny Kaiba didn't believe in, yes, and Yami knew that ultimately his way was right -- the past couldn't be refused, couldn't be erased the way Kaiba swore up and down he was capable of -- but he couldn't deny that the image of Isis's broken prophecy helped him.

There was Kaiba: defiant and blind and blind_ing_ -- ultimately not proving the nonexistence of fate, but proving fate's mutability. He'd carried out his destiny as much as any of them had, but he'd changed everything, in the same instant: the forces that were driving them were powerful, but not absolute. It'd allowed Yami to make the decision he did, given him the opportunity, although it wasn't what truly convinced him. Creating an opening was a small step, though vital, compared to the actual choice to continue forward. The crack that might flood the world with light was everything for a moment, but after that had to come the motivation to chip away at it until a pinprick of something brighter became a doorway out.

That, that final push, as it seemed like was always the case, had been Yuugi. Yami had realized, all at once, that he didn't _want to go_, and that had surprised him, because he'd thought so much of finding his memory, winning the game, righting wrongs and fighting evil and turning black to white. If Kaiba had shown him where grey lay, Yuugi had shown him that there was _color_, too: his bright purple eyes and Anzu's shining aquamarine and Jounouchi's warm gold and even Kaiba's steel blue; he'd shown him a life to live beyond the past and his vigilante duty. He'd shown him that he was more than trapped in amber, some surviving concept of world already quite dead.

But it still felt like a hollow victory, all the same. Everything should've been restored to its natural state, and Yami was not _meant _to be here. The lingering question of what he should've done, of if his presence here in the mortal world was the aberration it could be made out to be, would always be there, and Domino was _not_ familiar, was not home yet, and he wasn't sure it could ever be. None of the people or places around him just now were any more real, meant any more to him than the long gone features of Egypt would've. He wasn't even sure he knew exactly where he was, although he'd walked this route from the grocery many times. The streets just seemed to have escaped him. That sleek black car, on the other hand, stuck out quite strangely in his memory.

Yami frowned as he recognized Kaiba's limo rolling down the street ahead of him, slowing down, and if he hadn't been startled then, he was certainly on guard when it stopped just a few feet past him, and the back window slid down. This was not how he'd expected to play out the second round of...of whatever game it was they'd started in that park. Which was a dangerous thing, considering that games with Kaiba always required total concentration and every edge he could find.

But he'd never backed away from a challenge before, and if Kaiba threw him off balance, he could shove Kaiba right back. He shifted Yuugi's groceries to his other side, then walked over to the car, leaning in to hear what Kaiba had to say.

"Get in," came a now familiar drawl. There was nothing more, save for the click of a lock disengaging.

How anyone could stare so intently and yet speak so indifferently was quite beyond him, but Yami opened the door and slipped onto the leather seat. Opening move, no expectations yet formed, all possibilities still very much on the table, which was a risky position to be in, but one he ultimately favored. It left them both on equal footing, and meant that there was no limitation yet on where this game could go. Quick glance back only to make sure Yuugi had seen him and wouldn't worry, then he shut the door and set his groceries by his feet.

"Make it quick, Kaiba; I have milk in this bag."

Kaiba smirked at that, blue eyes glinting from behind his messy bangs. He was lounging on the other side of the seat, leaning slightly against a large silver briefcase. "Don't worry. Your groceries will be returned unharmed. You'll probably beat your other half home." Then his good humor seemed to fade all at once; his voice darkened. "Yesterday, I met you in the park."

Yami just nodded, leaning slightly closer as he realized that this was business. That shifted the parameters of their game, giving him one hard rule at least to play off of, and he liked hard rules because they were easy to manipulate. People trusted in them, took them as absolutes, and every single one could provide a perfect veil to cover intentions until the last moment -- strike. That was the weakness in laying out the rules, of course. You accepted them too quickly, having created them yourself, and when all the pieces fell into place and locked and your opponent realized the perfect way to send them all spinning back into motion and right against you...you were lost. Tables turned.

And as to the physical reality of this, of course that was what Kaiba wanted; probably he just needed to preempt all possibility of future blackmail, although he should've known by now that Yami had no reason, and more importantly, no _will_ to exploit whatever weakness Kaiba was guarding so fiercely. It was too petty, and what would it even gain him? He had no desire to ruin Kaiba's reputation, and that should've been clear from the start.

And for all his hidden motives and the tricks he employed in games, when it came to something that mattered, Yami liked everything out clear and in the open. Which is where he would put all of this, though Kaiba seemed to prefer leaving it in sentence fragments and ambiguous phrasing.

"You did, on a bridge, just past dawn," Yami prompted. He'd give Kaiba a chance to respond, give him something more, before he upset their little balance. Nothing came, and he glanced out the window, frowning. "I won't tell, if that's what you're worried about."

Kaiba's eyes were narrowed, when Yami looked back over at him, and he had sat up straighter, although he still kept one arm around the briefcase. "I'm not _worried_ about anything," he said sharply. "And nothing happened for you to tell about, anyway."

His knuckles seemed to be going white where he gripped his luggage, but with skin so pale as his, it was rather hard to tell. And that was the wrong thing to think about, as Yami's head instantly filled with the image of his lips, all kiss-swollen and a suitably bruised red against the pallor of his cheeks, and all these absolutely _asinine_ thoughts about how striking the contrast was and

"What are you staring at, Yu--Yami?"

The split second hesitation, the way Kaiba faltered trying to call his name, was enough to drag him from his musings. It was funny, how used he was to calling himself Yami, when up until the separation he'd responded to Yuugi by reflex, and no one had really called him that at all apart from Anzu and Yuugi, who was just as likely to call him simply "the other me," or, on occasion, "Pharaoh." Now _that_ was a name that would never come off Seto Kaiba's lips. Another tangent, though; when had it become so hard to focus on what he -- what was important?

"You're quite a distraction," he answered softly.

It wasn't until Kaiba's eyes went wide (His control had slipped like quicksilver right through his fingers, hadn't it?) and his lips parted slightly in shock (They were dry and pale again, no trace of Sunday, just like the rain, and how _fitting_) that Yami realized how his answer might have been taken as (What was it called?) a come-on. Again his head was too full of ideas; he looked down, but that just put his gaze suspiciously in the vicinity of Kaiba's lap; he looked out the window hastily.

"What are you _playing_ at?" Kaiba demanded, and he seemed to really want to know. Blue eyes wide like he was actually distressed; he set aside the suitcase and moved closer, as if the situation would make more sense that way, with a tighter focus.

Would that really work? And what _were _they playing at? And it was 'they' because if he was playing anything, they were matching each other move for move. Yami couldn't focus on anything, and the nearer Kaiba came, the harder it was just to think at all. Vaguely he wished he could think of something to do, to convince Kaiba to stop being so…to change this game so that it made more sense, stayed with a clear purpose and a clear set of rules. How did any of this work, if the rules seemed to change with Kaiba's temperament and everything could swing right back around into open hostility? Any peace between them had always been fragile, but -- in the park -- things had seemed -- Kaiba was -- or _he_ was -- different.

"Stop staring into space and answer me. What the hell is this all about?"

Yami didn't know what to say, found himself for once at a loss, and wanted to claim he didn't understand the question, because then he would've looked like an idiot, but he would've been ignorant instead of _wrong_. His head was buzzing; there was something just _wrong_ about all of this. Suddenly he felt oddly sick, and for the first time, he found himself with no available strategy. This was a game he didn't know how to play, and now, stunned by the concept of it even as he was, he found himself completely disoriented. Always before he'd been able to fake it, to hold his own until he'd absorbed the rules and begun to understand.

Was that the consequence of rejecting fate? This uncertainty? Now, adrift, no hope but in keeping the game moving until perhaps something would come to him, he threw the first counter he could think of: "What were you doing in the park?"

Kaiba blinked; maybe this game was new to him, too. That was good. If he was struggling, maybe they were at an equal advantage...and maybe they could learn the rules _together_. That made the game fair, and Yami could handle himself in anything, once the field was leveled.

"It's none of your business," Kaiba answered finally, jaw tight and words clipped. He crossed his arms, and that was a gambit Yami answered with an eyeroll and mirroring of the gesture; that was second nature by now. "It's my park. What were _you_ doing there?"

But give and take wouldn't work here; reciprocal questions and answers couldn't take them anywhere but around in circles, not when neither side would truly _give_. Yami shook his head, tried to focus, felt oddly numb. Bit his tongue in frustration at the way the pieces wouldn't line up, when always before it'd been instinctive. Kaiba was watching him expectantly, eyes narrowed with increasing suspicion and Yami -- Yami couldn't remember why he'd been in the park in the first place, why he'd wanted to be, or even how he got there. He'd just _been _there...and hadn't Kaiba just been there too?

"You kissed me," Yami said slowly, trying to make sense of at least one thing. That was the strategy, then -- assess the situation before making a false move. Every single element one at a time, if he had to. Bring to light every single step taken along the way, momentarily arrest all actions and reveal all motives; demand an explanation. Eventually he'd have solid ground under his feet again, and he'd be able to take a more confident step forward.

That made more sense, and he could be direct now that he had an idea, maybe not a clear one but the beginnings of one, of where he was going. "Kaiba -- why did you kiss me?"

Now Kaiba scowled as if he'd just been accused of something. For someone who hid so many of his intentions, his face could be an open book at times. Did that speak to a lack of caring or a lack of ability? "Why did you kiss _me_?" Moreover, it was his eyes, Yami realized; they showed anxiousness and something close to fear, whereas his mouth was just deceptive, pressed in a tight line: anger. Did Kaiba know that his eyes betrayed him like that? No, no, if he had, he would've worn sunglasses, surely.

"Because I wanted to," Yami said, not even bothering to try to answer with another question. Never expect from your opponents what you are willing to give them, but give all the same if it costs you nothing and can lead to progress. He wasn't going to play this particular kind of game, run circles around the issue like Kaiba seemed content to. It wasn't worth it anyway, and any clever thought he could've assembled would've been drowned out by the blood running in his ears, anyway.

Funny, the tiny things that made living in his own body so much different. Before, only occasionally in control, and even then not _himself_, he never would've been able to feel his head beginning to ring and his hands starting to get sweaty and his fingers moving restlessly. Strange, the tiny things he'd never noticed, like how breathing became increasingly difficult whenever Kaiba stared at him that particular _way_ that he did -- or maybe that was new, or maybe, more likely, that was not a reaction anyone else would've had. Did that mean it was wrong, or rare, or both?

"You _what_?" Kaiba echoed, and then Yami could see that they were even, wide blue eyes and tense posture effectively canceling out his own ringing ears and uneven breathing. Blow for blow, that was always how it worked: counter his opponent at every movement and give away nothing. Falling wasn't falling when he brought Kaiba down with him.

Which meant it was something of a reassurance, to know that at least Kaiba wasn't faring any better than he. Equals -- that was the way it was meant to be, the way it always had been, and that couldn't change, no more than a game of chess could be played with a set of grey and grey. He wondered, though, why this had been so simple, effortless, a day before. It'd been less real, in the park, perhaps, the consequences less immediate. Maybe it'd been the rain.

Kaiba was now right beside him, and it occurred to him that this, aside from Sunday, was probably the closest they'd ever been. Always before, Kaiba had been careful to keep his distance, and yet now he was inches away; what had changed? Yami wished he knew, distantly, but didn't really mind so long as he wasn't the only one who was lost.

He hardly looked like Seto Kaiba, with his lips ever so slightly apart like that, sharp jaw slack. Nothing ever got to him before, but Yami seemed to have acquired a talent for throwing him off. Things had never been quite normal between them, had they? It looked like he'd say something, but no sound came out, and Yami wasn't sure he wanted to listen, anyway. Didn't seem like it was going to be anything he wanted to hear. And, no, Kaiba still looked like himself, because he'd looked like this in the park, so determined and so _lost_, and maybe that meant something.

Meant something -- that was about as much as he thought before the collision: his mouth was on Kaiba's, his hands in that oddly messy hair, and if Sunday had been questionable judgment, this was just ridiculous, a mistake through and through, but that didn't occur to him until he found himself shoved backwards and he scrambled for a way to make sense of this and

"I'm sorry," Yami said; said Kaiba, "_Get out_."

He fumbled for the door handle and tumbled out of the car as quickly as he could, not sure whether he was trying to escape Kaiba's murderous glare or the complete stupidity of what he'd just _done_. It was only after he was stumbling on the sidewalk, leaning on the first wall he found, that he realized how lucky he was the car had been stopped for someone crossing the road; otherwise he might just have leapt out while it was going. It took another few moments, as the car sped out of sight, for it to hit him that he'd just _fled_. And not only that, but on Kaiba's orders.

This was _not_ the sort of sequel he'd been hoping for. Somehow, he'd thought that things would be simpler, that Kaiba would…that Kaiba would... That Kaiba would what? Did he even know what he expected?

It was such a juvenile mistake to make; it only took one match to teach an amateur that striking out blindly when he lost sight of strategy just ended in disaster, and that one good move was no reason to be careless. And why on earth would one dreary morning in some forgotten park mean _anything_? Kaiba would fight anything to the death, right down to himself, so why should one small surrender mean the war was over? He'd known that, thought of it even as Kaiba had leaned into him and -- Yami had been too quick to assume that….

Even on Sunday as it was all happening, he hadn't been _that_ naïve -- he'd known enough not to move without considering the consequences.

What'd made him do something so stupid? In the park, he'd had an excuse: it was dark, and rainy, and early in the morning, neither he nor Kaiba had been really awake, and if everything was dreamlike and dripping, no one could blame them for what they did, and Kaiba had started it, anyway, so it wasn't like it was his fault when he…when he….

So sharp; something had thrown everything off, sent everything spiraling, changed the contrast between black and white. Trying to sort it out, he couldn't even figure out exactly _when_ he'd moved, except that in that car, they were separate, then in one moment touching, then he was sprawling backwards the next. It didn't make _sense_.

He sighed and put his head back against the wall, unconsciously assuming the same position he'd put Kaiba into. He was determined, always, that was a constant, but it'd take a lot to make back the progress he'd made. He was more than equal to the task, of course, and he'd damn well do it if he set out to, but -- it'd been a careless mistake, a costly one. There was no telling how long it'd be before he figured out just how to recover his lost ground.

And as if he needed something more to feel like a fool about, Kaiba had driven off with his groceries.

It began to rain.

* * *

Next chapter shall appear sometime soon. Honestly depends on how many shinier objects I encounter and how inspired I am to rip apart the draft I have. Rewrites suck. But. Hopefully when that's over with the chapters will come faster; setup chapters kill me, so every draft gets picked on for weeks beyond what's sane. 


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